Mosin Nagant Sear Spring Breakage?

[flmason]

Hi All,
    In thinking about why the Mosin action might be inferior to a 98K the first thing that jumps out at me is the sear spring. It's a leaf and it also doubles as a bolt stop. So seems that much like old Colt revolvers, this has got to be a failure point.

Anybody know anything about the failure rate of these?

One of the usual sayings about Mosins is that they are "tough", but looking at those flat springs... I gotta wonder if they aren't as indestructible as folks like to think.

Looking at exploded views of a 98K, I'm not seeing any similar weakness?

[Rex in OTZ]

If that was a problem the Russians would have addressed it before banging out million's of that type between 1891 and late 1940's (1930-1945, 17.4 million model 91/30's produced) I had a Chinese type 53 stamped 1955 (how many the Type 53 ?).
considering there were worse weapons out there its amazeing just how many countries used the Mosin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosin%E2%80%93Nagant
http://7.62x54r.net/
http://mosinnagant.net/
http://mosinnagant.net/i3tro4.asp     110 years of the 7.62x54R

[Pat/Rick]

If a guy really had to replace one "in the field", I would think a washer and a piece of heavy banding would work. I purposely bought a beater mosin for parts.

[flmason]

If a guy really had to replace one "in the field", I would think a washer and a piece of heavy banding would work. I purposely bought a beater mosin for parts.

Yes, it is a rather simple part, to be sure. No doubt one could fabricate one rather easily with little more than some decent metal and a file if you had to. I guess if you really wanted to be inventive you could probably twist up a piece of banding and file to the right dimensions where needed and be good to go.

Might be an interesting project/exercise to make one or two.  (Geezus I need a shop... so many cool things to do, nowhere to do them. As an aside, gotta say, Mosins probably represent the lowest cost barreled action of proven design you can get. Probably be lots of bubba jobs out there for years to come that can be reworked without messing up the good ones. Shame they aren't in more commonly available caliber.)